BECAUSE YOU ASKED
Q: I’ve seen the term “unincorporated town,” and I’m not sure exactly what that means. What determines an “unincorporated town”?
A: County governments, of which there are 64 in Colorado, cover broad geographic areas and include all manner and form of local governments such as special districts, parks and recreation, housing authorities, school districts and municipalities. There are two types of municipalities – cities and towns.
Unincorporated communities do not have local governments but are governed by the counties.
There is no population threshold to determine whether a place is a town or a city, although until 1980 anything below 2,000 was legally a town and anything above was considered a city. The law was changed by the legislature, and it is no longer mandated that a community must be called a city or town based on population. However, population is still used as a guideline even though it is not official.
If a community is unincorporated, it is not technically a town but is often referred to as such. Often, the unincorporated community is only referred to by its name, such as with Evergreen, which is unincorporated.
Residents of a community that is not incorporated may decide it is in their best interest to tax themselves and create their own local government to have better control. If a community wants to incorporate, state law authorizes residents to petition starting with the board of county commissioners.
Centennial was an example of this when a group of homeowner associations in unincorporated Arapahoe County decided to get together and form their own city. Centennial was incorporated in 2001.
Colorado is considered a “small-town state,” with more than 200 of the 271 municipalities having a population of less than 5,000.
Source: Sam Mamet, executive director, Colorado Municipal League (cml.org)
COMPILED BY BONNIE GILBERT
Have you ever wondered how to register your child for school? What a political caucus is and how to get information about one? How many “fourteeners” Colorado has? If you’d like information about something in the state outside Denver, send questions by e-mail to becauseyouasked@denverpost.com or mail to Because You Asked, Denver Post, 1560 Broadway, Denver, CO 80202. Include your name, city of residence and phone number.
